Organizations store increasingly large amounts of data. In order to more effectively use the capabilities of differing storage devices, an organization may use a tiered storage system. Tiered storage systems may differentiate between storage devices and move certain files to a particular storage device selected based on the properties of the files and/or the capabilities of the storage device. For example, a “high” storage tier may provide one or more superior features (e.g., superior input/output performance) as compared to a “low” storage tier.
Unfortunately, executing storage tiering policies (i.e., moving a file to the appropriate storage tier) may require input/output operations, potentially degrading primary application performance. This problem may be especially acute when many files are added to a tiered storage system, since the tiered storage system may then have many files to process and/or move. Furthermore, when migrating files from one file system to another, file metadata that is ordinarily used by tiered storage systems to determine the appropriate storage tier may be lost and/or replaced. Accordingly, the instant disclosure identifies a need for additional and improved systems for migrating files to tiered storage systems.